For your reading pleasure, a short story I penned a little while ago I thought I’d share here, just for you. Civil Liberties The first time I ask Mom for my own neural link she says, “No, son. Isn’t gonna happen.” “But, Mom, it’s not like – ” “Dulal, not open for discussion.” I thought she’d at least ask me why. I watch her for a bit. I feel weird. I want her to listen,…

It’s been a month and nothing but silence from me, I know, I know. But despite the fact I can talk to a crowd of hundreds and not bat an eye, in fact never shut up, creating blog posts is more intimate, like having a phone conversation, or curling up in comfortable chairs and chatting. I detest the phone. And in fact I detest having to talk. Out loud. That’s what a blog post is:…

Summer Dining with Catfish Ceviche When it looks like it’s just going to be too hot to cook, either on the range or the barbecue, a little forethought can provide you with a deliciously savoury and cool dinner. In this case, the main event is ceviche, a quick-pickled fish concoction which is purported to be as old as 2000 years in Peru, but more likely of Moorish origins when Spanish conquistadors colonized the area. However,…

It almost feels like the morning after a binge. Headache. Disbelief. A feeling you’re going to lose your cookies if you’re not very careful. Vague sense of paranoia, and just wishing everyone would duct-tape their mouths. You’re tired of hearing about it. Tired of looking up with the conviction the sky is going to fall. But you know what? You’re not going to lose your cookies. People shouldn’t employ duct-tape on body parts. And we…

I’m no expert. Not by a long-shot. But I can tell you, having to maintain three websites, that the world of creating and maintaining a website is now highly complex, fraught with frustration, imperiled by hackers and spammers and all manner of roguish ruffians. Recently my website was invaded by hackers who planted malicious code, hijacking visitors off to all manner of disreputable sites. It’s taken me weeks of lost hair in finally clean the…

It’s one thing for me to review a novel or book. It’s quite another to receive a review of one of my own works. I’m always trying to decode them. Sure, it would be easy to default to the assumption I’m tetchy when it comes to reviews of my novels. But what I’m honestly trying to do is figure out if a negative review is the result of my own failing, or of a lazy,…

The Back of the Turtle by Thomas King My rating: 5 of 5 stars As always, Thomas King makes no apologies to his readers. I think he must write entirely for himself, because his stories are so full of imagery and metaphor, allusion and metaphor. He is, quite frankly, brilliant, and to read his work is to be immersed not only in the magic of a supremely good storyteller, but to come away with a…

The Rose Guardian is done. It’s taken me nine years to write this novel. During that time so much has happened, life events which have changed my perspective, given me new insight, which then required another shift in the story because, after all, we bring to our writing our own life experiences. However, The Rose Guardian is not autobiography. It is fiction, fitting into the category of magic realism, and is a story about three females, maiden, mother,…

I write a lot here about the process of writing. However, I don’t often address my process in painting, so I thought I’d take a few moments to offer an inside look into my inside thoughts. I’ve been painting far longer than I’ve been writing. At the age of 14 my art teacher, Roland Model, encouraged my mother to enroll me in extra-curricular art classes. She did that, and for the next three years I…